On Mar. 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear reactor site in Japan was severely crippled, with major radiation leakage, as a consequence of a massive earthquake at Tsunami which struck Japan.
On Apr. 5, 2011, within one month after the onset of the Fukushima disaster, the undersigned Harry V. Lehmann, caused to be filed a Provisional Patent Application, being No. 61/471,967, which set forth the invention upon which US Non-Provisional Patent Application US 2012/0310029, as published on Dec. 12, 2012. The undersigned works as the CEO of Green Swan Inc. (www.greenswan.org), a California-based firm concerned with human health in relation to radiation.
The above filings, on Apr. 5, 2011, and the later US Non-Provisional Patent Application filed on Apr. 5, 2012, contemplate the use of super-cooled fluids circulated in the Figures which are integrated into both filings, particularly as illustrated in FIG. 1 of US 2012/0310029. The super-cooled fluids as discussed hi the above Provisional and Non-Provisional filings while specifically mentioning the use of fluids other than N2, contemplated the use of extreme low boiling point fluids, so that extreme cold could be brought to bear immediately below the crippled reactor site, and similar sites, including that further removal of heat (and consequent increased rapidity of “ice-basket” riming) would result from an increased rate of boil off of the submitted fluids, due to increased pipe aperture at the mid-points of the doubled barreled shallow ice basket, or shallow ice bowl, approach contemplated in those patents applications.
Prior to the above filings, previous experimental and very limited practical deployment had been made of Liquid Nitrogen for the purposes of ground stabilization, most famously, circa 1995, in regard to the drilling and N2 filling of 178 holes around the Leaning Tower of Pisa so that the Tower could be stabilized in place without tipping over while restoration work was undertaken.
Prior to the above filings, previous experimental and very limited practical deployment had been made of other super-cooled fluids for the establishment of an “ice wall” barrier: Prior purposes of such “ice wall” approaches have included the establishment of a vertical ice wall surround to protect against radioactive ground water migration at a contaminated nuclear site in the United States, and a similar use of a deployed vertical ice wall surround was made, but not activated, for containment of water away from an active gold mine in Canada, and, also prior to the above patent application filings by the undersigned in April of 2011 and April of 2012, there were other attempts made to stabilize ground, or to mitigate ground water migration, through the use of vertical ice walls.
All of the prior Art, meaning all known Art in existence prior to the above filings in April of 2011 and April of 2012 was based upon the drilling of vertical holes, and the filling of those holes with super-cooled solutions, or the circulation of super-cooled solutions within such vertical holes, typically to obtain containment of ground water migration by the drilling of and filling of such super-cooled holes down to an impermeable or less-permeable sub-strata, including strata of harder clay or bedrock. In practical effect, all known prior attempts in this area had been to create a containment tank, with a surface circumference defined by the ring of drilled and super-cooled vertical hole, and a bottom circumference defined by the bottoms of such holes, hoped to be at points interfacing with the expected less-permeable sub-strata constituting the bottom of the large ice walled holding tank defined by the so-drilled and so-cooled holes, often in recent iterations contemplated to be taken to and maintained at a super-cooled state by the circulation of super-cooled saline solution.
The disclosed subject matter is directed to a System and Method for retarding and controlling the speed of flow of contaminated water, from a nuclear reactor or other contamination source from which such contaminated water is issuing.
The subject matter advantageously uses micro-tunneling, coupled with pipe insertion, coupled with insulated pipe insertion, so that liquids with very low boil points, such as Liquid Nitrogen, or other refrigerant gasses, may be inserted in the liquid state, to vaporize upon release from the insulated containment, so that heat energy is absorbed from the water table, resulting in a reduction in flow rate, thereby impeding the capacity of the water under flow to carry particulate matter.
The subject matter also discloses a “laced” approach, in which twin barreled pipes, as herein set forth, may be inserted an non-conflicting depths, but in such proximity to mutually contribute to water sludge accumulation, ice rime, and, with sufficient evaporation process, the formation of an ice lens, sufficient to retard the escape of contaminated water.
The effect of this System and Method is to control and slow the release of contaminated water as it is possible to rapidly obtain the freezing the ground water, including salt water, which permeates the area underneath the melted reactors, so that the resulting ice lens will mitigate the extent to which radioactive water is released into the environment. The method here described may be used for this purpose through the accomplishment of two goals; first, a resulting reduction in the quantum of radioactive water released, per se, and secondly, a reduction in the level of particulate radiation reaching the environment due to slowed water flow velocities.
It is advantageous to appreciate the existence of “trenchless excavation” for pipe installation. “Direct Jacking,” and the “Micro-tunneling” are approaches widely deployed in the civil engineering context, and similar approaches are used for waste water treatment pipe installation.
Direct Jacking is a tunneling process whereby a single new pipe is installed in one pass. A bore head begins the tunnel excavation from an access shaft and is pushed along by hydraulic jacks that remain in the shaft. The link to the boring head is maintained by adding jacking pipe between the jacks and the head. By this procedure, the pipe is laid as the tunnel is bored.
Micro-tunneling is defined as a trenchless construction method for installing pipelines. The North American definition of microtunneling describes a method and does not impose size limitations on such method; therefore, a tunnel may be considered a microtunnel if all of the following features apply to construction:
Remote Controlled: The microtunneling boring machine (MTBM) is operated from a control panel, normally located on the surface. The system simultaneously installs pipe as spoil is excavated and removed. Personnel entry is not required for routine operations.
Guided: The guidance system usually references a laser beam projected onto a target in the MTBM, capable of installing gravity sewers or other types of pipelines to the required tolerances, for line and grade.
Pipe Jacked: The pipeline is constructed by consecutively pushing pipes and the MTBM through the ground using a jacking system for thrust.
Continuously supported: Continuous pressure is provided to the face of the excavation to balance groundwater and earth pressures.
The above citations are inserted merely to acquaint the reader with the fact that in the modem context it is possible to obtain rapid remote controlled boring of pipe holes, so as to facilitate installation of pipe suitable for such installation. The remainder of the “ice lens” approach as herein stated are based upon the availability of such boring technology.
No sophisticated explanation of the Rankine Cycle is attempted nor necessary here, but a baseline discussion will speed appreciation for those who have not seen their high school or college texts for a while.
It is understood that it takes energy to convert any type of matter from its liquid state to its vapor state. Rather than getting esoteric, just consider the tea kettle; the kettle and its contents are heated, the boiling point is reached, at the boiling point the water reaches its vapor state, and leaves the kettle. It almost immediately precipitates to what we see as “steam,” although close examination of the spout will show a gap, perhaps we could call it a vapor gap, which is a view through the transparent water in its true vapor state. That water in the vapor state is invisible is known to those who have visited the engine rooms of steam turbine aircraft carriers, where in olden days, when a leak was suspected, a broomstick would be swung before a worker as he walked, as the thin vapor stream would cut the stick in half, thereby saving the man. Those turbines, of course, took immense amounts of fuel to operate, originally fuel oil, later nuclear. Bottom line, to take a fluid to the vapor state requires heat.
Our common experience may cause us to first visualize this as a one-way street of analysis; we apply heat, the fluid eventually reaches the boiling point as a result of the input of the heat, the heat having forced sufficient molecular vibratory activity that the vapor state is reached as a result of the heat. However, as Lord Kelvin taught, the system is a two-way thoroughfare. That is why we have working refrigerators. In that context, the evaporation cycle of a gas, chosen for its low boiling point (an issue which will be shown as relevant to the macro-machine here contemplated for radioactive containment) can, through compression of that gas (thus the “compressor” of a refrigerator) result in the use of the evaporative cycle, which is called the Rankine Cycle, for the extraction of heat, through the forcing of the cycle by compression of the vapor (gaseous state) so that the liquid state is reached, and then the carefully controlled evaporation of the subject liquid, thereby drawing heat at that point of conversion, from the surrounding material world. These are well understood baseline concepts with which all readers of this paper will have been familiar, but it is suggested that a quick review will enhance appreciation of the feasibility of the macro-application as hereafter explained.
The super-cooling of the circulated saline solution or other super-cooled liquid so-placed or so-circulated in such holes used an intermediary fluid to cool the affected earth, with the actual cooling obtained by Rankine Cycle cooling, yet without direct contact between the super-low boiling point fluids lined holes used to create the vertical ice wall which has been the aim of all known work prior to the filing of the Lehmann patent applications of April 2011 and April 2012.
It is advantageous to integrate the use of intermediary cooling fluids, including saline solutions, into the “ice basket” approach first articulated by the Lehmann.
In the last week prior to the filing of the Provisional Patent Application of Sep. 3, 2013, widely circulated news reports have indicated that those charged with responsibility for the attempted remediation of the natural disaster-caused nuclear contamination events at Fukushima are now seeking to adopt and deploy the older, ice wall” technologies previously used or experimented with in the United States and elsewhere as a means of ground water migration mitigation at toxic sites.
The prior “nice basket” filings of Lehmann, as incorporated herein by reference because of the creation of a shallow ice bowl for containment purposes, present clear energy consumption and speed of-construction advantages over the older “vertical ice wall surround 11 approach currently under discussion for remediation of the disaster at Fukushima.
The disclosed subject matter further explains the very considerable energy consumption and speed-of-construction advantages of the previously filed Lehmann patents, and for the additional purpose of asserting Claims for the use of intermediary cooling fluids, such as saline solutions, as part of the “shallow ice basket, or “shallow bowl” approach contemplate in the April 2011 and April 2012 patent filings. The prior art did not contemplate the use of computer controlled horizontal and mixed angle drilling, whereas such modem computer controlled mixed angle drilling was an inherent feature in the prior Provisional and Non-Provisional patent filings which have above been incorporated by reference into this document.
As to Fukushima, and in terms of application to any similar ground water migration mitigation system, the current, unexecuted, “ice wall” approach involves the establishment of a very deep ice walled cylinder, which would wall in the contaminated water with ice and frozen soil, such that the fence would run all the way down to bedrock or clay (far more than a hundred feet) at which point it is believed that the contaminants would hopefully be stopped from further ground water migration due to the “impermeable clay later” which is stated as residing at that subterranean level. This approach in comparison to the “ice basket” outlined in the previously filed Lehmann patent filings, results in a vastly larger volume of contaminated water containment, resulting in a vastly greater use of energy for cooling, than will occur of the “ice basket” approach outlined in the prior Lehmann filings is chosen instead. The presently contemplated “ice wall” approaches, using vertical shafts, does not make use of modem computer controlled horizontal and mixed” angle drilling technique, and the result of this is that a vastly larger pool of contaminated water is contained by the “ice wall” system than is the case if the more shallow “ice basket” or “ice bowl” as contemplated in the prior Lehmann patent filings is deployed.
The value of the “shallow bowl of ice” approach is very quickly and clearly illustrated with simple kitchen tools. The experimenter seeking to verify the advantages of the “shallow ice bowl” approach needs only one large cooking pot and one salad bowl having a diameter larger than the diameter of the pot.
By taking the large bowl, one with a diameter at the top larger than the diameter of the cooking pot, and placing the bowl the big metal pot, the experimenter will see demonstrated that only the bottom sixth or so of the salad bowl volumetrically, intrudes within the cylinder of volume described by the interior dimension of the large pot. In fact, due to the curvatures of the line of the bowl from a starting position at the “ground level” emulated by the top of the pot, the actual volumetric displacement represented by the interior dimension of the bowl, when compared to the volume of the pot, may be considerably less than a sixth of the volume of the pot.
In practical operation, at Fukushima, this results in a several positive advantages over the “ice wall” approach currently under consideration;
A) the evacuation of the contaminated water from a smaller starting volume means that vastly less ground water is contaminated during operation, which means that:
B) Far less groundwater need be pumped out, and further that:
C) Due to decreased interior volume of the pipes used for this purpose, coupled with the smaller volume of contaminated groundwater perpetually evacuated, the energy required for pump operation is very substantially diminished, and:
D) Pump strain is reduced, and:
E) Construction time, due to the use of computer guided micro-tunneling is much less, and:
F) Volume of extracted soils is diminished, and:
G) Immediate production of the ice bowl does not prohibit the construction of the ice fence, using the more traditional ice wall, approaches, such that a failsafe system would automatically evolve, and:
H) The currently announced “ice wall” approach contemplates forty years of accumulation of heavy contaminants at the allegedly impermeable clay layer at the bottom of the cylindrical area hoped to be described by the currently anticipated “ice fence.” Eventually, so it is hoped, four or five decades down the road, the site is to have been decontaminated. As a result, it would appear that the need for the ice fence would abate. Even if not the case, an assumption that there will be an ice fence, in site at a coastline, which will somehow remain in perpetuity is optimistic. The contaminants involved by their atomic weight nature heavier than their surrounding milieu, such that the accumulation of a substantial contaminant layer at the bottom of the proposed cylinder is unavoidable the “bottom of the pot,” see above). The contaminants generate heat when accumulated, and the character of interaction with the hypothetical clay layer is not known, and: Assuming the very best case with the clay layer (hardening by heat), upon the cessation of the “ice fence” cooling process, the result of the cylindrical “ice fence” is a huge residue of impermissibly dangerous contaminants, residing in perpetuity, and inevitably capable of lateral migration.
In comparison to all of the above disadvantages of a large cylindrical trice wall” the “ice basket” approach as articulated in the previously filed Lehmann patent applications, if deployed, would require the constant handling of only about a sixth of the volume, or perhaps a far smaller fraction, of the amount of contaminated water which would have to be constantly evacuated and treated if the more “classic ice wall” approach is pursued. The use of the “ice basket” approach will result in faster construction, less construction materials, and far less contaminate water to be handled, resulting in a substantial reduction in energy use needed to keep the pumps going, as well as far less equipment strain, and far less necessary storage of contaminated water J this last perhaps being the largest advantage of the previously filed Lehmann approach, per Apr. 5, 2011 and Apr. 5, 2012.
The present subject matter also addresses an unusual situation where there has been contamination into the earth and groundwater beneath a site, but where due to changed circumstances (such as the sinking of ground level from an earthquake, as happened at Fukushima) there are persistent or intermittent situations where hydrostatic pressures are greater beneath a site than at ground level for that site. Fukushima currently stands as an example of this peculiar and difficult situation, where a combination of gravity, great heat and great weight have caused penetration of radioactive materials through concrete containment and into the ground below and groundwater, while simultaneously there may be greater hydrostatic pressure below, such that there is a radioactive artesian effect.
These and many other objects and advantages of the present subject matter will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims, the appended drawings, and the following detailed description of preferred embodiments.